John Salerno wrote: > It's a nice thought that a person can earn a living programming with > Python, which is fun enough to use just for its own sake. But for > someone like me (i.e. no programming experience) it's always a little > disheartening to see that most (if not all) job descriptions that ask > for Python still require some C/C++ or other language knowledge. I > suppose this isn't an issue if you studied CS in college, because you > would have been exposed to many languages.
There are two seperate issues here. My current job requires only Python, unless you classify SQL as a programming language. My previous couple of jobs I used a mix of Python and C. I don't think it's easy (perhaps impossible) to become a good programmer without exposure to multiple kinds of languages. If you're really trying to become a well-rounded computer professional I'd recommend reasonable exposure to at least: * C * A static functional language (ML, Haskell, etc) * Lisp or scheme Scheme * A static class-oriented language (Java, C++, etc) * A dynamic OO language (Python, ruby, smalltalk, etc) and at least a brief look at, say, Forth and Prolog. Even though you may not ever use, say, ML and lisp in your work, IMO you'll likely be a much better programmer at work if you've learned C, Lisp, ML, Java, and Python than if you've learned C, C++, Java, Python, Ruby, and VB. And you'll have a much easier time learning new languages if you've learned an array of different ones than if you've been focused in on a couple of kinds of languages. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
